The Oregon Trail Trip Wrap

Okay, let’s put a fork in this thing and wrap up our latest adventure, which we have dubbed “The Oregon Trail Trip” (because the trail seems to tie our three-month odyssey together fairly well even though we did a lot of other things, like volunteering at Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, that have nothing to do with the Oregon Trail).

For starters let’s confirm that we are now home safe and sound. We left the trailer for repairs in Oklahoma, and stopped on the way home in Stephenville, Texas where we ate supper at one of the Texas Monthly Top 40 Cafés. The food was pretty good, but this place probably ranks somewhere near number 40 on the list. We’ve been to well over half of these cafes now and I still think Maxine’s in Bastrop tops the list.

The stop in Stephenville was our 90^th night away from home on this trip but just our second night in a motel. We also spent one night in a B&B and one night with friends Larry and Marlyn Gibbs in Bernalillo, New Mexico. The other 86 nights we slept in the travel trailer, staying at 20 different state parks – 12 of them in Oregon – two national parks, one city park and ten private RV parks/”resorts” that included three KOAs.

We drove through 16 states on the trip and spent at least one night in every one but Kansas. Normally I don’t include Texas on these lists but on this trip we drove through the panhandle and spent a night in Amarillo, then left the state to go into Oklahoma on I-40 and then re-entered the state on U.S. 281 (crossing the Red River on the George W. Bush Bridge) and spent a night in Stephenville. So it seems like Texas deserves to be included on the list of “drove through” states this time.

Overall we drove 12,622.2 miles in the truck and burned 1,086.6 gallons of gasoline (11.6 mpg); 30 percent of it was needed to get (more or less) straight home from Astoria. During our 90 nights away from home the truck was running for 316 hours and 48 minutes; which is more than 13 full days and more than 14 percent of the entire time we were gone from home. One way to think about it is that we were either asleep or driving (occasionally, both) nearly half of the time we were gone from home.

However, we were awake long enough to visit 15 different National Park Service units, bringing my total number of parks visited to 214 of the 392 NPS units. Fortunately, we got all of the planned visits in before the government shut down.

We spent the most nights in Oregon, 37. Wisconsin was second at 27 followed by Colorado at five and Idaho at three. In addition to Texas we spent two nights in six other states; Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Utah. We spent one night in four states; Oklahoma, Washington, Nevada and New Mexico.

We attended five state fairs on the trip and Betsy and I agreed on the rankings (from best to worst): Iowa, Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Wyoming.

We had a fantastic time and a rewarding experience volunteering in Apostle Islands National Lakeshore and (assuming the Federal Government un-shuts by then) we may go back again next summer. We loved the Bayfield archipelago, and the sunsets from the dock at Little Sand Bay were – by far – the best we saw on the entire trip; perhaps, on any trip ever.

The experience of following the Oregon Trail – which we joined in Kearney, Nebraska and tracked closely all the way to Oregon City – was much better and far more rewarding than I thought it would be. There are a ton of great interpretive sites and interesting things to see along the way. We could easily have given another week to that portion of the trip; and it would have been very cool to have started out at Independence, Mo. and followed the entire trail from start to finish. I think it is safe to say we both gained a new and robust appreciation and affinity for the emigrants. If anyone is thinking about taking a big, American-style road trip I’d suggest giving the Oregon Trail a hard look.

As the charts below indicate we had some modest divergence of opinion about our favorite Oregon State Parks and our favorite parts of Oregon.

Oregon State Parks	Betsy Rank	Dave Rank
Collier Memorial	1	2
Champoeg	2	1
LaPine	3	6
Beverly Beach	4	5
Harris Beach	5	7
Ft. Stevens	6	4
Cape Blanco	7	3
Clyde Holiday	8	8
Emigrant Springs	9	9
Memaloose	10	12
Tumalo	11	10
Sunset Bay	12	11

Collier Memorial is off the beaten path in southern Oregon about 30 miles from Crater Lake and it is just a beautiful, quiet spot in the midst of towering pines with nice trails along the crystal-clear Spring Creek, an expansive logging exhibit, secluded camping pads and the only laundry facilities of any of the Oregon parks we stayed in. Champoeg is a very large park with some great hiking trails, a nice visitor center and the Butteville Store that sells wonderful homemade pies and great ice cream near the banks of the Willamette River. It is also convenient to Portland, Salem and Hillsboro (home of the Hops). We stayed there longer (five nights) than at any other Oregon State Park. LaPine, south of Bend, is a beautiful park similar to Collier but with more extensive hiking trails. The main reason I did not rank it higher is because we were not there very much, spending most of our time in Bend on the Ale Trail. If we had spent more time in the park it might have been my top choice. Harris Beach is in the extreme southwest corner of the state and it is another park that would surely have ranked higher if we had spent more time there. The campsites are on a bluff overlooking the beach and they are quite lovely and there is a ton of great hiking, including a short trail into the nearby town of Brookings. Unfortunately, a lot of people know about all of these attributes and we were lucky to snag even one night there because the park was booked up months in advance.

Our biggest divergence of opinion on the Oregon parks was Cape Blanco where it was foggy and cold. I liked the hiking trails and the views when the fog lifted, Betsy apparently not as much. Memaloose got low rankings from both of us because of highway noise from Interstate 84 and Sunset Bay ranked low because the campsite pads are very short and packed in close together. The fact that it was shrouded in cold fog and that there was absolutely zero chance of seeing the sun - much less of seeing it set - the entire time we were there probably didn’t help; although the hiking trail to the rose gardens in the state park on the bluffs above the ocean was one of the best on the entire trip; and the gardens were spectacular and nearly as extensive as the more famous Rose Garden in Portland.

In summary, all 12 of the Oregon State Parks were very nice and each had its unique character and attributes.

Oregon Sections	Betsy Rank	Dave Rank
Columbia River Gorge	1	2
Bend	2	1
Middle Coast	3	3
Willamette Valley	4	7
Crater Lake/Oregon Caves	5	9
North Coast	6	8
John Day/Southeast	7	5
South Coast	8	4
Northeast	9	6

Even though the Columbia River Gorge views were impacted by smoke from forest fires and our state park campground abutted busy Interstate 84 this section of Oregon is just too pretty, too diverse, too lush, too unique and too spectacular not to garner a top-two ranking from both of us.

The weather in Bend was chamber-of-commerce-quality the entire time we were there and that may be why I ranked it number one over the Columbia River Gorge.

The middle coast, which we both ranked #3, included Pacific City and Tillamook; places we had been before and liked and liked just as much, if not more, the second time around.

I ranked Crater Lake/Oregon Caves last because we had poor weather and ended up, basically, killing a day in Klamath Falls; which is an imminently forgettable place. Also, the RV park where we stayed near Oregon Caves was probably the least desirable camping spot on the entire trip. Conversely, Collier Memorial State Park was Betsy’s favorite and it was her first time to see Crater Lake; which was, of course, spectacular. That may account for her higher ranking of this section than mine.

Not surprisingly I ranked the remote, mountainous areas – like Northeast and John Day/Southeast – a little higher than Betsy while she tended to like the more urban sections that included the state fairs and the Hops baseball game.

Overall I don’t think there was a single part of Oregon that we both did not really like or that we both would not want to go back to.

Unquestionably we gave short shrift to Portland; spending only about a half of a day downtown. In a city famous for its restaurants and brew pubs we ate Korean from a food truck and did not go in a single bar or drink even one beer (which, by itself, is startling). However, I don’t think either of us feels a bit bad about giving Oregon’s largest city so little of our time.

Another area that we shorted was the I-5 corridor which includes the university towns of Corvallis and Eugene; and the southern cities of Medford and Grants Pass. We did consider going to an Oregon State football game in Corvallis but that did not work out with the schedule and other priorities.

However, if we had it to do over again, I don’t think there are very many things we would do differently in trying to “really get to know” Oregon in 37 days.

If we were to go back and, perhaps, stay put in one area instead of traveling the entire state it would be very difficult to choose where that one place would be. Bend would definitely be high on the list, as would Pacific City, Hood River and Harris Beach. I would certainly consider going back to the remote southeast or northeast; Betsy, maybe not.

If I was going to live in Oregon for an extended period of months or years I would probably choose Bend.

We were both very pleased to return to Buena Vista, Colorado where I spent four months last year and, I suspect, we will probably find our way there again in the years ahead.

While we had remarkably good fortune during our travels, others did not.

In Arizona the family dog, Hank, died. In Texas Dave’s aunt died; as did a longtime member of the jogging group, Allan Guthrie. Our super-neighbor, Rick Noble, fell ill and is having exploratory surgery Monday, possibly/hopefully to remove his gall bladder. Our friend Phil Reed parted ways with a love interest; then was furloughed from his job by the government shutdown. On our last day in BV a freak rockslide on a popular hiking trail just a few miles from town killed two BV High School coaches and their daughter, a senior at BV high school; along with two relatives of the family. A second daughter survived but was severely injured.

It’s always a blessing to get home from a trip like this safe, sound and unscathed; maybe more so this time.